Red Pepper » Dan Iles

Food for thought: food sovereignty in Europe

admin — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 12:15:24 +0000

‘Food systems have been reduced to a model of industrialised agriculture controlled by a few transnational food corporations together with a small group of huge retailers. It is a model designed to generate profits, and therefore completely fails to meet its obligations. Instead of being dedicated to the production of food … it focuses increasingly on the production of raw materials such as agrofuels, animal feeds or commodity plantations. On the one hand, it has caused the enormous loss of agricultural holdings and the people who make their living from those holdings, while on the other hand it promotes a diet which is harmful to health and which contains insufficient fruit, vegetables and cereals.’
So states the final declaration of the Nyeleni Europe food sovereignty forum, which took place in August when 400 delegates from 34 countries met in the town of Krems in Austria. The forum was structured to break the delegations into interest-specific groups and then facilitate inclusive and participatory discussion so as to form the basis for a declaration that would provide direction for the European food sovereignty movement. However, as with most such forums, the most important element was the opportunity for producers, consumer organisations, workers, activists and campaigners to meet up, share their stories and plan the future.
In a direct challenge to the top-down ‘food security’ agenda, which accepts the corporate dominance in our food system that is part of the problem in the first place, the real struggle against global hunger is not taking place in parliaments, financial institutions or scientific laboratories. Instead, it is small-scale farmers and disempowered consumers who are coming together to build a better food system from the bottom up. In line with this approach, the forum included a day of protests at supermarkets around Krems and a market combining farmers’ stalls and political information aimed at the town’s inhabitants. This combination proved to be a powerful outreach tool.
Nyeleni Europe represents the community-supported agriculture collectives, organic farmer unions, local food cooperatives, seed swapping organisations, food activists, farmers’ markets and community gardens that form the front line against the corporate tide.

What’s in the name?
In Mali there is a powerful symbol that could serve as the symbol of food sovereignty. It’s a woman who left her mark in the history of Mali, as a woman and as a great farmer. When you mention her name everyone knows what this name represents. She is the mother who brings food, the mother who farms, who fought for her recognition as a woman in an environment which wasn’t favourable to her. This woman was called Nyéléni. If we use this symbol everyone in Mali will know that it’s a struggle for food, a struggle for food sovereignty.
Ibrahim

Greece
The situation in Greece is that over the past few decades farmers have been paid to stop cultivating – to take out old trees, old vines, etc . . . So now there is a lot of uncultivated arable land left unused and seemingly abandoned. With the economic crisis these farmers are getting less money and now everyone is afraid because we have all this land but no food is being grown.
In a search for a proactive alternative some families are going back to trying to directly support their local farmers. They are getting together to form consumer collectives to buy produce to try and usurp the middle-man. People are also trying to create alternative currencies to keep economies local.
Jenny Gkiougki works with the Greek indignados

Belgium
In Belgium there is a lack of cohesion among agricultural groups because of the language barrier and all the politics that go along with it. Consequently there is very little collaboration between the grass-roots movements on either side of the Flanders and Walloon areas of Belgium. However, some of the recent developments in food movements are similar in the northern and southern parts of the country.
There is a strong, growing local food network in the Walloon part, the GASAP (Groupe d’Achat Solidaire de l’Agriculture Paysanne) based in Brussels, and the Voedselteams in Flanders. The latter is the better established with a staff of five half-time employees, over 120 local groups and 80 farmers engaged in the project. All the groups have a similar approach as they focus on the proximity of the food producers to consumers. They have developed their own screening systems for farmers because of the failure of the main organic labels to count distance and scale of farming as criteria for labelling.
There is a very new phenomenon of ‘community supported agriculture’ farms appearing in Flanders that have a self-harvesting approach. There are about seven at the moment, operating close to cities such as Leuven, Gent and Antwerp. Farmers’ markets have also grown in recent years and been embraced by local authorities.
Last year, a group of six short food supply chain projects appealed to the Flemish government for a strategic action plan on short chain agriculture. This will involve a recognition of short supply chains as a new innovation that increases contact between food producers and consumers, enables producers to set their own prices for their products and produces food for local markets and communities.’
Wim Merckx, Belgian delegate from Flanders

Spain
As in all Europe, peasants and small farmers are disappearing in Spain. Statistics show that over the last 20 years three farms have closed every hour. There are lots of different problems caused by the abandonment of agricultural activity. Among them, due to our arid climate, are soil erosion and the threat of desertification. Social problems are even worse; depopulation of the rural environment causes a territorial imbalance and a deep disconnection between cities and villages.
However, there is a growing movement that offers solutions and practices alternatives to the dominant system. For more than ten years now, farmers, urban consumers, environmental activists and others have been working together for food sovereignty, resisting the current rules, bringing consumers and farmers closer together and developing new and innovative ways of fighting commercialisation, GM foods and so on. We want and we need peasants to produce local and healthy food that both respects the environment and keeps villages alive. It is great to share problems and experiences with people from all Europe and to see that there is a strong European movement fighting for food sovereignty.
Blanca G Ruibal, Friends of the Earth Spain

Bulgaria
In Bulgaria, as elsewhere, the problem is that there are a lot of powerful supermarkets that are not obliged to sell local products. The population is generally very poor, so people are forced to look for the cheapest goods, which are normally imported. This is killing Bulgarian producers.
Local groups have set up internet consumer schemes that organise together to create a virtual cooperative for food. This is done mainly through Google groups, with people ordering what they want on the web and then sending a collective order to the local farmers. This enables the farmers to know how much of particular products are needed and what to concentrate on. It also gives them considerably better financial security.
Bulgarian community food organiser

Italy
In Italy, the main problem now is that we are treating food as a commodity and the financialisation of agriculture is the major example of that. Land has been abandoned all over the country, not because it was impossible to farm but because the industrialised farming system thought the local market wasn’t important any more. This has led to a huge loss of biodiversity because we thought that vegetables need only be produced in just two or three regions in the south.
However, there are more examples of food sovereignty projects in Italy than ever. These include farmers’ markets giving producers direct contact with consumers – they are no longer simply consumers because they ask about production and become part of the process. In Italy we now have one million meals per day made with organic products, almost all Italian. This local money is generating a lot of local development for organic farmers.
Andrea Ferrante, chair of the Italian association for organic farming

The Nyeleni Europe website is being developed as a resource for the food sovereignty movement. The forum agreed on Europe-wide actions, including supermarket occupations, marches and other forms of direct action on the ‘International Day of Peasant Struggle’, 17 April 2012

Bristol: Chameleon skin, seditious heart

admin — Fri, 02 Sep 2011 21:36:48 +0000

Bristol has been at the heart of radical movements in the UK for centuries. Historically it has been known as a location whose populous would act, often in riots, when they were pushed too far by the ruling class. The Bristol Bridge and Queens Square played host to large-scale riots in 1793 and 1831 respectively. The 1831 riot is one of the most famous in the lead up to the 1832 Reform Act, one of the first major steps to universal suffrage.
The riot is usually cast by mainstream historians as a raging drunken mob. However, there is clear evidence that the rioters carefully targeted symbols of the establishment, burning down three prisons, looting the customs house in Queens Square and attempting to destroy both the council houses and the cathedral. For the past five years the Bristol Radical History Group has been opening up the local history of ordinary people. If you are lucky, you can catch one of their radical history tours, which lead you through the various struggles Bristolians have engaged in.
The recent pro-local, anti-Tesco riots in Stokes Croft again demonstrate the simmering anti-establishment feelings that lie close to the surface in Bristol’s political culture. However this episode, largely provoked by the police, should not be viewed in isolation from the dense network of community-focused radical groups and institutions active in the city. Nor should Stokes Croft take sole ownership as the only radical hotspot in the urban jigsaw puzzle of ‘radical villages’ that make Bristol such an interesting place to live and visit. A range of social, environmental and political projects give areas such as Montpelier, St Werburghs, St Pauls, Easton, Southville and Bishopston an inspiring spirit.
To start with, a large chunk of the city’s radical culture is characterised by its fascination with music and art. The city bubbles at the forefront of Britain’s artistic radical talent. Indeed, just as the mainstream music giants envelop dubstep, a sound mined out of the Afro-Caribbean dub and reggae influences, the city has already moved on to new uncharted musical territory. The same feeling goes for graffiti, for even though Bristol is known throughout the liberal classes for the works of Banksy, it is the likes of 3Dom, Sepr, Rowdy, Andy Council and the collective known as St Just mob, whose vibrant paintings reclaim the streets with bright and political murals.
This graffiti gives Bristol a chameleon skin that is constantly in flux. There is an age old battle over visual space, where corporate symbols, rolled out by the council for quick cash, are constantly subvertised. It is a continuous cause of satisfaction that billboards that were once celebrating Coca Cola’s 125th birthday or Vans new urban shoe now host a range of well thought out political messages. Indeed, in some parts of the city, notably Stokes Croft, artistic ‘vandalism’ is so set in that the council is helpless against the tide of creative talent. Here you can wander around and see graffiti artists freely take turns at painting the boarded up derelict buildings, bringing to life an area that could so easily look run down if left to the council alone.
The people of Easton
Our radical tour should start in Easton, an area that has been denied the investment set aside for improvements in the white middle class areas of Redland, Clifton and Hotwells. This village is dotted with community-owned projects and typified by the plaque on the wall of the Easton Community Centre which reads ‘This stone was laid by “the people” of Easton’. This centre is no usual community centre and often plays host to anarchist fundraisers, cross-socialist conferences or refugee events. Every Sunday, the community gathers for a food handout with a twist, Bristol Foodcycle, a community initiative that reclaims food that supermarkets throw away and cooks up tasty meals in an effort to bring people together around healthy eating.
The area is also home to a community sports venture, The Easton Cowboys and Cowgirls. This group strives to build social ties between the diverse ethnic backgrounds in the locality. Walking down Chelsea Road, you reach the community permaculture project of East Side Roots . This project has transformed Stapleton Road railway station from a seldom used suburban railway link into a community hub where people can grow food, share gardening skills and most importantly talk and build community links. Along with its sister project at the Trinity Centre , on the other side of Easton, East Side Roots provides vital volunteer work and meeting space for disempowered refugee populations in projects also coordinated by Bristol Refugee Rights.
Down St Marks Road, you reach the anarchist social centre on Robertson Rd, the Kebele Community Co-op . The centre aims to provide a living example of the anarchist ideals of collective decision-making, non-hierarchical structures, cooperation and mutual aid, and direct action. It hosts a number of activist groups and collectives covering issues ranging from squatting to immigration, animal rights, permaculture and bike workshops.
On foot from Easton, you can reach the largely Jamaican community of St Pauls . This is the location of the UK’s first riots in the 1980s, where locals attempted to raise their voice against police oppression and the social injustices exacted by Thatcher’s government. Now it is the host of the St Pauls carnival, a yearly expression of Bristol’s vibrant and multicultural community. On Portland Square, St Pauls, is the squatted social centre The Factory . This is one of the most famous squats in Bristol, offering space for activist meetings, film nights and community meals.
Stokes Croft
From here, it is only a five minute walk to the now-famous Stokes Croft , an area in a constant struggle against corporate developers and the inevitable gentrification. Even so, there is a high density of social centres and radical shops. At the start of the road you will find the Freeshop , a long-squatted building that attempts to question the dominance of consumerism by giving its products away for free. Next up is Hamiliton House, a building that has recently seen a large transformation and now gives space to both The Canteen and Coexist . This was once abandoned and coveted by only street drinkers, but now it hosts a buzzing bar and socialising space for the city’s progressively minded. It also acts as a decent venue for events such as the successful Anarchist Bookfair.

Further up is the workers’ co-op that is Cafe Kino . This serves delicious, ethically sourced vegan and vegetarian food and is the meeting point for many radical groups. Away from the main road is one of the most interesting spaces Bristol has to offer.
The Cube, a collectively-run radical cinema, is a great place to go for documentaries and discussions on climate justice, food sovereignty and other global issues. It has also been running a cinema space over in Haiti, in an effort to build community and provide entertainment to a population under constant social stress.
In its entirety, Bristol is an incredible place to live. It acts as a stronghold for activists and social projects. At the same time, it provides a cultural outlet for one of the country’s most diverse artistic communities. Home to a great many radical thinkers, artists and activists, it is no wonder Bristol is considered the nation’s most accessible melting pot for radical activism.

www.eastsideroots.org.uk
www.brh.org.uk (Bristol Radical History Group)
www.foodcycle.org.uk/bristol.php
www.eastoncowboys.org.uk
www.kebelecoop.org